Dr
Marcovitch seemed to be particularly negative about complaints made by
parents and non professionals who supported them. It has been easy to
dismiss these complaints as the sound and fury of abusing parents, duped
journalists and activists, signifying nothing - but causing great distress
to falsely accused professionals. Lost in all of this - the sound and fury
from both sides - has been the very serious and grave concerns of
professionals who have been seriously damaged by daring to speak out,
destroy their own careers and write about the false theories which have
led to false accusations of mothers. I am not ashamed to name myself as
the leading professional in England who fits such a description - and as
no-one asks me for my opinion it seems a good moment to express it yet
again.

The
reference by Lord Justice Judge in the current Cannings Appeal to 'a whole
series of false steps leading to conclusions of a statistical kind that
were misleading' reflect almost to the very words used, my own published
concerns back in 1997. (1) I wrote that I could not find any robust
scientific or statistical base to the theory of Munchausen Syndrome by
Proxy which is also known as Meadow's theory and which lies at the heart
of his cot death theory. I said 'something seems to be going very
wrong'.

In
this published Letter to the Editor I asked the British Psychological
Society to begin an Inquiry. I had seen through Meadow's theory in a 1995
case when I was involved as an Expert Witness. Such was my concern over
the distortions of thinking, use of shock tactics and influence resulting
in 4 children wrongly being removed from a family, that I wrote to Jack
Straw in 1996, the then Shadow Home Secretary. I did so because I was
giving advice to Mr Straw as Chair of Promoting Parenting Skills - a group
of psychologists who are members of the British Psychological Society -
and we joined forces with the Home Office to present a conference in
Birmingham. We also presented a lot of written material to the incoming
current Government relating to parenting and had a number of
meetings.

Mr
Straw said he was unable to do anything as the case was not in his area,
but he did say he would be interested in what New Zealand did about the
case when the mother had moved with her husband to Auckland. New Zealand
have also been duped by this theory and these 'eminent' men.

Instead
of investigating the theory and the proponents of the theory, Roy Meadow
was given a knighthood by this Government which knew from the outset -
because I told them and gave them a great deal of information - about the
very worrying distortions of thinking leading to false accusations and
gross miscarriages of justice. So they were duped by Meadow and others and
his theory.

Since
then vast numbers of children have been wrongly torn from their mothers
and, as I also said in that Letter, many innocent mothers have been
falsely imprisoned. Far from my concerns being investigated, or even taken
seriously, the opposite has happened and the theory and its proponents has
gone from strength to strength and has become ingrained into our
increasingly cruel social system.

The
British Psychological Society has pursued false allegations against me
rather than investigate the false theory - so they too were duped. I found
connections with Roy Meadow behind the attempts to discredit me and get
struck off. Without recognizing that there have been longstanding concerns
by a British professional who was highly regarded by members of this
Government prior to the MSBP concerns, as the truth comes out and only the
voices of journalists and activists are heard, the public could be left
with the opinion that no British professional spoke out about what was
going on here and the tragedies inflicted on mothers and innocent
children. I hope this sets the record straight. I also hope that all those
who have been duped will finally wake up for the sake of all the children
abused by the system, the falsely accused mothers and the reputation of
this country.

Competing
interests: Have made diplomatic representations to the Dept of Health
since 1996, concerns in letters to Jack Straw in 1996/1997, many published
articles, Rapid Responses, radio, TV and documentary appearances, advice
to the Griffiths Inquiry, traveled to New Zealand in the middle of cancer
treatment, to expose Meadow's false theory.